


midway between the end and the start

by amorias



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Secret Identity, Spitfire - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorias/pseuds/amorias
Summary: It had to be him. College AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by miraculous ladybug and brella's fic “royally flushed” and “make me like you” by gwen stefani. title is from the song midway by the bad bad hats.

February 1, 2016  
16:16 PDT

Of all the people to run into, literally run, scalding hot coffee and books first, it had to be _him_.

Ten weeks, ten weeks was not enough time to do anything for five classes. Five classes, class from 10 to 4 on Mondays and Wednesdays, class from 3 to 7 on Thursdays, 11 to 1 on Fridays, three midterms, one paper, and one group project all within 48 hours of each other – if it wasn't for the aforementioned scalding hot coffee, Artemis is pretty sure she would be dead right now. The coffee, of course, can only stave off death for so long and she is completely wired, paranoid thoughts about dropping dead after this is all over encroaching on her mind a little too frequently.

She rounded a corner and oh, there he was! Now with coffee down his shirt and dribbling onto the crotch of his pants, which Artemis had to seriously, _seriously_ prevent herself from laughing at because that's not appropriate at all, but god damn, it's Wally West, and she hates this motherfucker.

Of course, when she rounded the corner in her apartment building and ran into him, she was in such a rush that didn't even realize it was him at first. “Shit, I am so sorry,” she says, stooping to pick up her stack of books and papers that had been precariously in her arms, “I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm so...” She drifts off as her eyes scanned up his body, starting at his legs and catching on said crotch dribbles before dragging themselves up his red, now-stained shirt, up to his jawline, to his slightly uneven teeth that were showing because his mouth was curled into a grimace, to his freckles, his green eyes, and his stupid, _stupid_ red hair. All the color drains from her face and all of the sincerity in her voice slips away.

“Can't you watch where you're going, Artemis?” He asks. The way he says her name makes her skin crawl and she really doesn't feel sorry at all anymore. She doesn't move from her position on the floor, collecting her things, her face burning. “Now I'm going to be late to class, thanks to you."

“Wally,” she grumbles, trying her best to muster up even half of the level of sincerity she can drag up from deep inside her. “Sorry.” She sees him crouch down and reach for a book and she snatches at it, because Wally is the last person she needs helping her out.

He stands up with a huff.

“Fine.”

He turns on his heel and Artemis just rolls her eyes. Once he rounds the corner, she falls back onto her butt, pressing the heels of her palms into her closed eyes and trying not to scream. This is the last thing she needs. She takes a moment before pulling herself up onto her knees, stuffing papers into her books and folders and considering going to get another coffee, but she's already here, so she'll probably just make some herself – she really spends way too much on coffee anyway, and holy crap, her sense of time must be _really_ messed up because she swears Wally just walked away from her like, five seconds ago, tops, and now he's back and completely changed despite living on the other side of the building.

“Um,” she mumbles, finally standing up and fumbling with her keys, watching him as he walks by, so obviously _trying_ to ignore her. “I'm _right here_ , you know!” She calls after him, frustrated for no reason at all. He just shrugs and she shoves her key into her door, opening it and throwing all of her books into the entryway before slamming it shut because she hopes he heard that, the little shit. She leans up against the door and slides down until she's sitting on the floor and she drags her fingers through her hair, holding onto the roots and pulling lightly to try and relieve some of the mounting tension forming across her scalp.

How did he even do that?

 

February 1, 2016  
22:05 PDT

“Okay, odds of Wally having some kind of weird time powers?” Artemis says, still tweaking out after her 6th cup of coffee, which she downed in about 3 seconds before they ran out the window and down the fire escape to go patrolling around the area.

“Zero to none,” Zatanna sighs. “I think that you would know if there was a time traveling superhero running around.”

“Superhero? Yeah right, more like super villain.” She flips her hair as best she can under her helmet, and she knows that all the wind rushing through it is just going to make it a tangled mess that she's going to have to deal with at some point. “Y'know, the Flash can time travel. I'm just saying.”

“You think Wally is the Flash?”

Artemis doesn't get time to answer, or even really consider the concept, as they skid to a stop outside of a warehouse, suspiciously lit up, smoke drifting from the windows and sounds of a struggle coming from inside. They hop off their bikes and crawl up to a neighboring roof to get a better look of the action. Through a small window, cracked just enough to let light shine onto the sidewalk below, they can see flashes of yellow and red bolting around, and a more stationary figure dressed in all black save for a light blue bird emblem on his chest.

“Nightwing!” Zatanna says, as quietly as she can while containing her excitement.

“Yeah, and Kid Mouth,” Artemis says, significantly less pleased.

“Oh please, Art, you love him.”

“Do not!” Though, as obnoxious as Kid Flash was sometimes with his bad jokes and constant attempts to impress her, but he had _nothing_ on Wally West, so Artemis decides that he was a breath of fresh air after her encounter with him in the hallway today. She breathes in the crisp night air, her lungs tingling even after months of being free from Gotham's summer smog. “Let's go.”  
They climb to the next roof, gravel crunching under their feet. Artemis hangs down off the rim of the gutter, kicking in the window and jumping in, landing along with a shower of frosted glass. Zatanna isn't far behind her and is suddenly right next to Nightwing, back to back.

“Zatanna?” He says, trying and failing to mask the surprise in his voice.

“Looks like you guys needed a hand,” Zatanna says, smiling knowingly. She extends out an arm, punching a goon straight in the face an arrow blasts by her.

“'Bout time you showed up,” Kid Flash's voice seemingly comes out of nowhere before he skids to a stop next to Artemis, tilting his head. She strings up her crossbow and shoots one to the left of his head, pinning a man down by the shoulder of his shirt. He whips his head around to look and nods approvingly. “Nice one.”

“You were expecting us?” She raises an eyebrow incredulously while scanning the area – Zatanna calls out a spell and a large group of them are all tied up together and fall to a lump on the floor. “How did you know we'd show?”

“You always do.” He winks, and she is left with another blast of wind that tangles up her hair as he zooms over to the other two heroes. He gives a lazy two-finger salute.

“Zatanna.”

She pretty much ignores him, looking over at Nightwing, who rises from a standing position and dusts off his gloved hands after tying up two more bad guys.

“I didn't get to properly say hi,” she says after he strides back over. “Nightwing.”

“Zatanna.”

“Tigress!” The blonde practically shouts, crossing over in front of her friend, waving a hand in Nightwing's face. “I'm here too. And so is Kid Flash. Gang's all here.” She crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her head.

“Yeah, guys, we're like _right here_ ,” Kid Flash says, making a face and resting an elbow on Artemis's shoulder. She shakes her head fondly and shoulders him off. “Keep it in your pants, dude.”

“Like you can talk, Mr. 'I want to bone my neighbor so bad that I'm an asshole to her.'”

“Dude!” Wally yells, voice peaking in embarrassment. “That one wasn't even good!”

“Yeah, Nightwing, if you're gonna make fun of a guy, at least make it witty,” Zatanna chirps, which makes him color red under his domino mask.

“It's week five, cut me a break.”

They smile at each other and Artemis deliberately looks away until Kid Flash claps his hands together, snapping her back to attention.

“Hey, not like it's not fun to watch you two go all goopy over each other, but, I think the police are on their way,” Wally puts his hands on Nightwing's shoulders, “and this guy has a midterm tomorrow, while I,” here, he gestures dramatically at his chest, “have a Vietnamese lit paper to write that I haven't even started.” He gives an exaggerated bow to the girls and smiles lopsidedly. “Tigress. Zatanna. See you on the flip side.” He loops an arm around Nightwing's elbow and pulls him along.

“Huh,” Zatanna says, watching as they lope along into the night. “I never noticed--”

“If you are about to say something gross about Nightwing, I really do not want to hear it.”

Zatanna nudges her lightly in the side. “No! Although his ass was looking fine tonight, that's not what I was going to say.” Artemis fake gags, which makes the brunette roll her eyes. “I was going to say that I never noticed that Kid Flash's teeth are... kinda crooked. Like, in a cute way.”

Artemis looks over at the place that they were occupying before, and she swallows.

 

February 2, 2016  
01:30 PDT

“I'm _telling_ you, Zee, it was not human. I hadn't even finished picking up my books yet, and he was already back! Changed and everything!” Artemis is laying on her back on the couch, ungracefully ripping at the tangles in her hair with a comb. Zatanna, hair still impeccable even though they had just spent the better part of three hours riding motorcycles and stomping their boots into bad guys's faces, sits in a chair next to her and is filing her nails. It probably has to do with magic, and Artemis briefly wonders what she could do to get Zatanna to charm her hair in the same way--

“Sweetie... I think you need to go to bed.”

“I don't know if I could even if I tried,” she says dismissively, rubbing her face in a way that only accomplishes smearing dirt across her nose. “It's like he has super speed or something! And I swear this has happened before.” She sits up abruptly, abandoning her comb on the couch cushion next to her. “I know you think I'm crazy--”

“Artemis, I know you're crazy.”

Artemis continues, ignoring her roommate's comment.“But there are times where I know he can't be there, and he just... is! Like that time he forgot his textbook, in critical thinking, remember? He left for it and then he was back literally less than ten seconds later. How!” Someone bangs on their floor, and the blonde quiets down. “I just don't get it. How is he so insufferable?”

“I dunno, he's kind of cute,” Zatanna says, leaning forward in her seat. “Not as cute as his roommate, but he has the green eyes, freckles, kind of the good guy from Kansas look to him.”

“That's because he _is_ from Kansas.”

“Seems right up your alley.”

Artemis sputters, bolding upright. “ _Excuse_ me?!” More banging from below. “What would ever give you the idea that I'm into _anything_ like that? I am into the literal opposite to anything that he is or could be.” She pauses, thinking momentarily. “Think Conner Kent. That's my type.” Almost as if she doesn't believe the words that just came out of her own mouth, she flops back onto the couch, draping a forearm over her eyes.

“I'm just saying, for someone you hate, you sure do talk about him a lot,” Zatanna points out.

Artemis's mouth immediately dries out and she sputters for something to say. It's not her fault Wally lives in her building and is in some of her classes and she's forced to see him almost every day even when she tries to avoid him!

She crosses her arms over her chest and stares hard up at the ceiling. She can't stand Wally West, and that is something she knows for a fact. 

 

February 3, 2016  
16:15 PDT

Artemis has committed to spending the next 5 hours in the library. Not moving, surrounded by a stack of books and sneaking snacks out of her backpack, drowning out surrounding noise by blasting classical music until she finishes this paper and does at least two of the study guides for her midterms.

Someone pulls out the seat across from her, and then someone else does the same with the other unoccupied seat at the table, plopping down into them unceremoniously and hoisting their backpacks onto the table. Her eyes flick up for about half a second before going back to her laptop screen, and-- wait a second. She looks back up, and god, you have _got_ to be kidding her. She glances up towards the ceiling, because whoever the powers-that-be in the universe are, they have some sick sense of humor to shove Wally West and Dick Grayson right across from her.

Wally actually puts his feet up _on the library table_ , because he's a disgusting slob, and he pulls his backpack onto his lap and grabs a bag of chips from it, which is possibly the loudest and most irritating thing you could eat in the _library_ of all places.

Again, he's a disgusting slob, and Artemis doesn't know why she's surprised. She takes out one of her earbuds and glowers over at him.

“Can I help you?” He asks, shamelessly shoving a handful of chips in his mouth. She wrinkles up her nose.

“Hey, Artemis,” Dick says, smiling in a way that is probably not intended to be malicious or anything, but definitely comes off that way because it's Dick and he's a freak. “Whatcha doing?”

Artemis knows Dick Grayson from high school – he's the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, AKA the richest guy in the country and founder of Gotham Academy, where her mother had strong-armed her into going to after she got some insane scholarship for absolutely no reason. He's a freak, and totally nerdy, into hacking and all this other junk that was never even on Artemis's radar, and somehow was the resident womanizer by the end of their junior year. They knew of each other and were in a few classes together, but that's as far as it went. Zatanna was instantly infatuated, of course, but don't ask Artemis why because she does not get it _at all_. She doesn't really know how Dick and Wally knew each other, but she does know they're basically attached by the hip.

Dick actually remembered her though, when they ran into each other in the on-campus coffee shop, and he was with Wally, who tripped over his own feet and spilled both of the coffees he was carrying onto the rug. He blushed bright red as she stifled a laugh behind a closed fist and snapped at Dick, asking who the hell she was supposed to be, and she snapped back, which pretty much set the whole tone for their relationship up until this point.

The fact that she thought Wally was kind of cute when they first met meant _nothing_. His personality and general demeanor were so annoying that it made him completely unappealing.

“Studying, obviously,” she mutters before turning her glance to Wally. “We're in the library, you know,” she whispers harshly.

“Yeah, I know,” Wally says, shrugging. She glances pointedly down at his food. “What, this? I'll be done in like three seconds.”

“Wally is basically a human garbage disposal,” Dick adds on.

Artemis really doesn't care, but she doesn't have anything personally against Dick, so she musters up every ounce of self-control she has in her body and actually bites her tongue against saying something snappy.

She glances around, desperately searching for another table to relocate to, but there's none – not a single space anywhere, and she wants to bury her face into her hands but that would show way too much weakness in front of Wally, so she attempts to regain her composure by breathing in deeply through her nose and closing her eyes for a moment. It works, kind of, and she shoves her earbud back in and hunkers down to go back to her paper. To her surprise, he is done with his food in probably less than the estimated 3 seconds, and he neatly folds up the bag and puts it in his backpack before pulling out a textbook.

An hour goes by without issue, and Artemis only gets distracted and sneaks glances at Wally, who reads at a weirdly fast pace and is turning pages about 20 times a minute, twice. By the end of it, he's set his textbook to the side, and she happens to catch that it was an advanced thermodynamics book, and okay, maybe she was a _little_ impressed. She was also extremely suspicious, and this did not help convince her that he wasn't some kind of time lord.

Dick packs up his things and gives Wally a kind of nudge, which he swats away, and throws a wave in Artemis's direction.

“Tell Zee I said hi.” He gives her a smarmy grin before leaving and Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose, because that is something she is definitely _not_ going to do. She pushes her computer away and pulls her physics textbook and her study guide out of her backpack and decides that two hours should definitely be more than enough time to finish this, depending on how many times she has to stop and punch herself in the face for not understanding general ed physics. She chews on her pencil and taps random things into her calculator, which doesn't really help.

She can smell skin and laundry detergent, and faintly sour cream and onion chips, and she jumps once she turns her head and sees Wally, sitting next to her (when did he even move?), leaning over into her personal space to look at what she's doing.

“Jesus,” she gasps, putting a hand to her chest. “What is wrong with you?”

“What're ya studying?” He asks, making to snatch the paper from in front of her. She puts a hand to his chest and pushes him out at an arm's length.

“None of your business, West.”

“Really?” He gives her a look that makes her skin crawl and kind of heat up, and he's smiling lopsidedly. “'Cause it looks like you could use a hand from the Wall-man.”

“I'll pass,” she mumbles, putting her chewed-up pencil back to her lips.

He huffs beside her. “Suit yourself.” He stands, stretching his arms up over his head. His t-shirt lifts a little bit, and she can't stop herself from glancing over and noticing the freckles dotting his hipbones, the barest mentions of a dark orange-brown happy trail – she looks away, gulping, and she closes her eyes when she can feel him leaning down over her, a gloating smile on his face.

“Like what you see, babe?” He mutters.

She scoffs under her breath. As if she would ever be attracted to someone with stupid red hair and a shitty personality and breath that smells like sour cream and onion chips and freckles that go all the way down and uneven teeth! As if she would like someone who has the wholesome, good-guy-from-Kansas vibe, because that's so not her type, and even if it was, Wally would be the last person in the world she would admire. Especially since his name is _Wally_ , which is possibly the lamest name in existence, and she would rather be called Snotface McBoogerbrain than be called Artemis West-- wait, why is she even thinking about _that_ \--

She shakes her head fiercely, throwing everything she was just thinking out of her brain, and she doesn't get the chance to say any of that, because he's already pulled away, leaving her nose filled with the scent of his deodorant. He holds a piece of folded up paper out to her, and when she looks up at him in surprise, his face is turned away from her's and his ears are turning pink. She takes it, stiffly, awkwardly, the rustling of the paper sounding like the loudest thing in the room next to the pounding of her heart in her ears.

When he speaks, his voice is just an octave lower, and softer, and it sounds so unlike anything she's ever heard from him, especially in regards to _her_.

“Well, uh,” he says, and his voice is so painfully sincere that it makes Artemis want to crawl into a toilet and flush herself down the pipes, “if you ever change your mind, that's my number.” He gestures lamely at the paper, which she looks down at, mouth agape. He looks over at her and shifts, reaching over and placing a curled up hand under her chin, lifting it up until her mouth closes, and her skin is so warm, too warm, she needs to find a nice cold lake and jump into it and maybe drown in the process. She's staring into his eyes, green and glowing like a traffic light, and something feels like it snaps in her chest before she comes out of whatever spell Wally just put over her. She pulls away, pushing his hand out.

“Yeah, I'll get back to you on that. Maybe in a million years,” she spits, face flushing and skin red down to her shoulders.

Something on his face changes, and she can just see the faintest of pouts of his bottom lip, and he rolls his eyes, picking up his backpack and slinging it over one shoulder by both of the straps.

“Fine, have fun failing physics!” He says, familiar malice creeping back into her voice and comforting her, somehow. He takes a few steps away before turning, and his voice returns to how it was before, and it makes the hair on her neck stand on end from its softness. “Seriously though, I'm free after 4 most days, so...” His shoulders bob up and down listlessly, and he raps his knuckles on the table a few times before mumbling a quick “see ya” and leaving, leaving Artemis speechless and dumbfounded.

What. The hell. Was that?

 

February 6, 2016  
21:00 PDT

Artemis survived her hellish midterm week and now is rewarded with the weekend and all she wants to do is drop into a 38 hour nap to catch up on all the nights she missed, but Zatanna springs on her the idea of going to a party.

“Why are you doing this to me,” she asks, pressing the butts of her palms into her eyes.

“Please!” Zatanna pouts. “I haven't had the chance to dress up and look hot in like, 3 months.”

Artemis rolls her eyes. “Implying you don't look hot every day, Zee.”

“Flattery won't get you out of this one, Artemis.” She crosses her arms over her chest defiantly. “C'mon, it'll be fun!”

The blond stares down at the floor, contemplating. Getting drunk would surely put her to sleep, so she would probably have to just drink Red Bull all night – wait a minute. Artemis groans.

“I am _not_ going to just DD for you,” she says.

Zatanna lets out a gasp of shock. “You're not!” She looks offended, but in a half-joking way. “Can't I just want to spend a girl's night out with my best friend and a few hundred other people?” She smiles in that knowing way that makes Artemis worry. “Besides, I already have someone else to DD.”

“And who would that be?”

“You have to say you'll go first.”

Exasperated, she throws up her hands. “Fine, okay, I'll go.”

“Promise?”

She huffs out a breath. “Promise.”

“It's Wally.”

Artemis blinks, absorbing that little piece of information. After about half a second, she bolts upright on the couch.

“No. Nope. I'm not going to a party with _him_ because that means that Dick is going and _that_ means I'll be left alone with him while you and Dick go off and do... whatever it is you do!” Artemis swears, if she has to spend one minute unsupervised with Wally West, she will probably strangle him. And she doesn't even want to think about Zatanna and Dick going off to get freaky, because that's probably what's going to happen – god, when Dick is around it's like the name “Nightwing” isn't even in Zatanna's vocabulary. She shakes her head and tightly closes her eyes, trying to wipe _that_ mental image from her head.

“Please, Artemis! You already said you would go. Also they're coming over in like half an hour, so you'll have to see them anyway!”

There's a long pause in their conversation while Artemis weighs the pros and cons of going. Pros: it could be kind of fun to go out for the first time all quarter. Cons: there will be _Wally fucking West_. She will have to be in a car with Wally! She sighs.

“Fine, I'll go.” Zatanna squeals and hugs her, which makes Artemis smile in spite of herself. “I hate you, you know.”

“Oh please, you love me.”

Half an hour later, Zatanna is trying to smooth Artemis's rat's nest of hair into a semi-presentable bun as she tugs down on a skirt that is much too short and much too tight.

“I can't believe I'm wearing this,” she grumbles bitterly. “Can you even imagine what Wally is going to do with this?” She hunches up her shoulders up around her face until Zatanna forces them down so she can finish her hair.

“Out of all people, you're concerned about Wally? Seriously?” She asks incredulously, and Artemis can hear her rolling her eyes even without looking up. The latter opens and closes her mouth, floundering for words and bumbling out some kind of word-vomit excuse when there's a knock at the door and Artemis just about has an aneurism as her roommate rushes over and flings open the door, tilting her head and putting a hand on her hip and generally looking flawless enough to even get Dick to shut up, for once.

Artemis can hear Zatanna talking animatedly from the entryway and she lifts herself off the chair in the bathroom and passes her eyes over her reflection one last time – she doesn't even look like herself in this mini pencil skirt and boxy black crop top, and it makes her want to change into her disgusting sweats and crawl into bed and stay there forever. But because she's a good friend, and because she totally owes Zatanna for that one time she locked herself out of the room at 3 in the morning, she takes a few hesitant steps into the hallway, peeking out into the entryway where they're all standing, Dick gesturing helplessly and trying to come up with something to say as Wally is peering around the room through the door.

“Is Artemis coming?” He asks, and she flattens herself against the wall, because seeing Wally in theory was bad enough, but now that he's here and she's here dressed like this she feels like an idiot, especially since the boys are dressed in hoodies and jeans and Converse sneakers.

“Yeah, she should be right here,” Zatanna says, and the blonde gulps as she hears her heels tapping against the floor towards her, and she shakes her head fiercely, trying to plead with Zatanna to not grab her by the arm and pull her out. Zatanna shakes her head right back and smiles as she does exactly what Artemis doesn't want her to do and pulls her into the entryway, and she feels totally exposed as Wally's eyes flick over her and his freckles stand out against the pinkness of his cheeks.

She stares down at the floor, and hates him for making her feel like this.

“Let's just go,” she mumbles.

“Right!” Zatanna chirps cheerfully, stars practically in her eyes. She wraps an arm around Artemis's shoulders and gives her a look, which she can't help but smile at. “Let's go!”

The drive over is uneventful, or if it was otherwise, Artemis wouldn't have noticed – she stares out the window the entire way as Zatanna leans forward from the backseat and flirts and smiles with Dick. Wally stares at her from the rearview mirror as he drives; she doesn't notice, instead examining her reflection in the window and counting the dismal number of stars in the sky as the car bumps over uneven streets leading to the frat house.

It's chilly out, smelling like rain, and Artemis regrets not bringing a jacket. She hugs herself, rubbing her hands over her arms, which are prickled with goosebumps, as they walk along the sidewalk to the house. It's brightly lit, tiki torches lit around the front yard and Christmas lights strung up along every story of the house. She breathes out softly and a cloud forms in front of her face, standing slightly behind the other three members of her group as they wait to get let in, and she stares at the ground for most of it.

“Are you okay?” She hears someone softly ask and she jerks her head up, blinking at him – at Wally, who is tilting his head at her.

“Oh, um, I'm... just tired” she says lamely, shrugging. “Long week.”

“Are you cold?” He asks, and if she didn't know any better, it would actually sound like he was concerned for her.

“I'll be fine when we get inside.” Right then, she shivers, and she curses her body for betraying her, especially when she sees him pulling off his hooded jacket. “No--”

“Oh c'mon, Artemis,” he says, rolling his eyes and laying the jacket over her shoulders. “Just take it.”

The smell of him, of detergent and deodorant and sweat and skin, hits her and she's totally reeling, but he's already turned back to Zatanna and Dick so he can't see it, which she thinks she is probably thankful for. She puts it on without thinking just as they're let in – as if there was any doubt that they would've with the combined might of the richest guy and the hottest girl at the university.

“They make a good team,” Wally whispers in her direction, and she tightens her grip on the edges of his jacket and nods stiffly.

It's dimly lit and stuffy, with a wide make-shift dance floor in the middle of the living room and music pounding into Artemis's head and making her dizzy. People talk, flirt, dance, kiss. She looks around and, hold it, is the Conner Kent making out with _Megan Morse_?

“Zee!” She says, looking over to where she thought her roommate would be, but she's vanished, and she hates it when she does this. “Zee?” She drifts through the crowd.

“Artemis,” Dick's smooth voice carries easily over the music, and she turns to him.

“Dick! Where did you guys go?”

“Wally went to get drinks. Zee pretty much vanished as soon as we got in.” He laughs. “Not used to being on the other side of that one.”

She makes a noncommittal noise and looks around. She and Dick don't talk much usually – she probably talks to Wally more than she talks to him, which is really saying something. He's nice and all, they just don't have a whole lot in common, other than going to the same high school and their love for Zatanna.

“So,” he starts, throwing her off guard. She looks at him questioningly. “What's it take for a guy to get in with you?”

Oh my god. Is he hitting on her? Like she would ever in a million years do that to Zatanna, and besides, Dick Grayson is so not her type, and honestly she can't imagine him being that into her type either. She glowers over at him.

“If you're hitting on me, Grayson, I will tell Zee and she will probably kill you, and then never speak to you ever again.” He puts his hands up in surrender, and she raises her eyebrows an infinitesimal amount.

“Hey, asking for a friend.”

“Uh-huh,” she mutters after a pause. “Look, I don't know what you're getting at, but I don't know why anyone you know would want to 'get in with me.'” She puts dramatized air quotes around her words.

“Art,” he says, his voice too sincere. Ugh, he makes it so hard to be bitchy to him when he sounds like that. “You know he's nuts about you.”

She stiffens. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Play dumb all you want, but secrets don't stay buried forever.”

That startles her enough to actually look at him, and her mouth is hanging open unbecomingly as she tries to come up with a snappy comeback, but she doesn't get the chance because Wally comes over right then, two red solo cups in his hands.

“Hey--” He starts, holding out one of the cups to Artemis.

“Huh, is this my cue to leave? Oh look, there's Zee,” Dick says, walking away in some random direction and Artemis feels like she's going to throw up.

“Yeah, okay, bye,” he calls after him, rolling his eyes and smiling and laughing a little, shooting Artemis a look that seems to say “what a dork, right?” as if Wally has any right to call another human being a dork considering the fact that he is probably the dorkiest of all. He sort of nudges the cup towards her and she takes it automatically, avoiding his gaze. “What were you guys talking about?”

“Nothing!” She squeaks. She gulps down some of her drink to stop herself from saying anything else until her voice settles, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She gestures to his cup. “Shouldn't you like, not be drinking?”

“Uh...” She looks at him weirdly as he falters. “Don't worry, it's really hard for me to get drunk.” He waves a hand in front of his face. “Like, really hard. Practically impossible.”

She eyes her drink suspiciously. “Trying to get me drunk?” she asks, grimacing.

“Your's is Red Bull,” he fires back, and she blinks dumbly at him. He sighs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “You said you were tired! And I figured-- I dunno, I just thought...” He swallows, and feels a little stupid. He shrugs half-heartedly and lets his sentence trail away, and she just nods.

“So... how'd you do on your physics midterm?”

“Huh?” She gapes and then shakes her head. “Oh. Yeah. That. It was fine, I guess? I mean, there were a few questions I didn't really know but...” She shrugs. “I guess I didn't really need your help after all.”

He blinks, and nods.

“Guess not.”

There's some half-genuine country music playing in the background, a change of pace from the house music that was making her entire body buzz, and Wally looks over at Artemis for just a fraction of a second too long – he doesn't look away fast enough when she catches him staring, and their eyes link up. Finally, they rip their gazes away, and she makes an awkward side step away from him, staring down into her half-empty cup.

“Um.” She visibly swallows. “I'm going to go find Zee.”

She starts to pull away, but Wally zips his hand around her's. They stand there, a twangy, clichéd love song filling the gaps. “I'll-- um,” he coughs raggedly, trying to clear the lump in his throat. “I'll go with you, I mean, Dick is probably with her-- so...” He trails off completely and Artemis feels the air vibrating around her – he lets go suddenly and wipes his hands off on his jeans.

“Yeah, okay.” She looks around a bit from her spot. “Any ideas?” There's an uncomfortable moment of silent eye contact and just as Wally opens his mouth to speak, Artemis holds up her hand to stop him. “Don't answer that. I'll just call Zee.”

“Oh, uh-- yeah. Yeah! Good idea.”

She calls her, and Wally calls Dick, and no answer from either of them. The house music has resumed – someone must've regained control from the country freak in charge of the playlist – and Artemis can barely hear herself think, so it's no wonder Zatanna isn't answering her phone. She snaps her phone shut and turns back to Wally with a sigh.

“No answer.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I'm going to go outside, see if I can get... better reception.”

“I'll come with--”

“No! No. Er-- sorry, just...” Artemis starts backing up from Wally towards the doors leading to the backyard. “Just wait here.” She turns on her heel before he has the chance to say anything else and bolts, zigzagging through the crowd and bursting into the night. She huffs out a breath that forms into fog in front of her face, drops of cold rain pricking at the exposed skin on her legs, and clambers around to the side of the house, away from the light of windows and torches. She brings a finger up to her ear and whispers Zatanna's name.

“Zatanna? Are you there?”

She swallows, and gives it a few seconds. If she's with Dick, she'll have to get away from him before she can respond.

“Art?” Her name crackles through her comm link, faster than she anticipated, airy and drunk. “What's goin' on... ?”

“Nothing, nothing. I've been trying to call you, Zee. Where are you?”

“Oh, 'm upstairs,” she responds, her words slurring together between the alcohol and the lack of clarity from the unreliable comm link.

“Are you with Dick?”

“Yeah.”

She blows out a soft breath, closing her eyes and tipping her head back so the crown of her skull bumps up against the side of the house. She must have been quiet for just a moment too long, because Zatanna's voice appears in her ear, sobered and urgent.

“Is everything okay, Art?”

Artemis swallows thickly.

“Yeah! Yeah, of course,” she lies through her teeth. “Me and Wally were just wondering where you were. No biggie. We'll meet up later.”

“Artemis--”

She pulls the comm link from her ear and pockets it, leaning her whole body against the damp house for a moment to steel herself before going back inside.  
After catching Wally up, the next few hours feel hazy, like Artemis spent the entire time in a fog-filled room where she can't see anyone's faces in front of her, vibrating with music. At around one in the morning, he grabs her hand and it's grounding and warm and he pulls her outside, grinning as he bolts through the rain to the gazebo in the backyard, where there is a swinging wooden chair that they sit in, illuminated only by the strung up Christmas lights from the house and the scattered torches, practically going out from the constant drizzle.

“I'm not lying!” Wally laughs, adamant. His eyes are shining and practically glowing from the dim light. “I swear one time Dick had soda come out his nose. Why would I lie about this!”

“That just so doesn't sound like him,” she says, smiling in spite of herself. “I mean, billionaire Bruce Wayne's adopted son? Having soda coming out of his nose?”

“If you don't believe me, ask Zee, she saw it too.”

Artemis leans back in her seat, making the wooden swing creak. She bends and straightens her legs out slightly, rocking it slowly back and forth.

“Do you ever wonder when they're just gonna get it over with and date already?” Wally asks after a moment's contemplation.

“I know, right!” She says, flinging her hands out in front of her. “Have you ever met two people who were obviously so perfect for each other?” She looks over to Wally to gauge his reaction and he has a funny look on his face. She straightens up. “What?” She asks, quietly.

“Nothin',” he says quickly, and there is a moment of awkward quiet. She moves her gaze to the ground, slowing the swinging to a stop. He clears his throat and she looks at him, air buzzing. “Actually, Artemis, I wanted to--”

“Artemis!”

All of the movement in the air seems to fall dead to the ground as Zatanna runs over, interrupting whatever Wally was about to say. She's drenched and somehow she still looks flawless as she ducks under the gazebo and sits next to Artemis, wrapping her arms around her torso. Dick isn't far behind, laughing uncontrollably, which makes Zatanna start laughing, and Artemis and Wally exchange looks.

“We should probably get going,” Wally says, voice tight. “It looks like these two are pretty trashed.”

“Oh,” she says, disappointed for no reason at all. “Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Let's go.”

They let the rain fill in the gaps between Dick's mumbling and Zatanna's drunken giggling in the backseat. Artemis's eyes flash up to the rearview mirror to see them cuddling and she quickly looks away. The car smells faintly of stale cheeseburgers, and it somehow makes Wally slightly endearing, like he's an actual person who eats food and sometimes forgets to throw the wrappers from his car.

She's still wearing his jacket, and she stares down at the ends of the sleeves, at the tiny tears in the ribbing and the ragged edges. She leans her head against the cold window and sighs softly.

“Did you have fun?” Wally asks from next to her, briefly taking his eyes off the road to look at her. She shrugs and then finally nods her head.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She looks back at Zatanna and smiles. She furrows her brow slightly before turning back around and staring out across the horizon. “I'm glad Zee dragged me out.”

“Me too,” he says, and in the dim light she can see his face turning red. “I mean, it was fun, with you? Er, not just with you of course, it was just a good time, and--”

“I get it, Wally,” she laughs, a surprising laugh that bubbles out of her, unwelcome and without warning. “Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you just accidentally complimented me. I know you have a reputation to keep up.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice just an octave lower and one step quieter. “Thanks.”

They pull into his parking space and drag their counterparts out of the backseat, Dick only half-conscious and leaning against Wally with one arm over his shoulder and Zatanna mostly coherent with her arms wrapped around Artemis's waist. They head towards the building and take the elevator up to their floor, not sure if Dick and Zatanna would be able to make it up the stairs without seriously hurting themselves. They get to the girls's door and stop.

“Oh, your jacket...” she says, just now remembering that she's wearing it. “Let me put her into her room, I'll be right back--”

“Keep it,” he interrupts, adjusting Dick's weight across his shoulders. “It looks good on you.” He chews on his bottom lip, looking at a spot next to Artemis's head that is indeterminate to her. “Well, good night, Artemis.”

“Um. Yep. Good night. See you later.” She gives a half-hearted wave as he turns and drags Dick down the hallway, staring until well after they've rounded the corner.

 

February 11, 2016  
20:15 PDT

Somehow, Artemis finds herself desperate enough to text Wally the next week, because she has another physics exam in the morning and she hasn't done a single problem on her study guide, and all the words and numbers just sort of seem to run together. So, she swallows her pride as best she can, and, before she can think better of it, presses “send.”

NEW MESSAGE TO: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:16 PM]  
(Yeah, she put him in her phone as “Wallace” because she wants to continually remind herself how stupid his name is and putting in “Wally,” while stupid, it too familiar than she ever wants to get with the creep.)  
Um. Hey.

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:17 PM]  
Hot and fresh pizza delivery, may i take your order?

NEW MESSAGE TO: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:19 PM]  
You're such a freak??

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:21 PM]  
Funny. Who is this?

NEW MESSAGE TO: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:23 PM]  
It's Batman

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:23 PM]  
Nah, i've got his number already

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:23 PM]  
jk

NEW MESSAGE TO: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:25 PM]  
It's Artemis, you dingbat. Who else would it be??

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:26 PM]  
Idk, i give my number to a lot of people coulda been anyone

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:26 PM]  
So. Decided to call upon the wall-man for suppose?

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:26 PM]  
**support

Artemis grits her teeth before pressing send, because she _really_ should've known that this was a terrible idea, as it was turning out to be, but her pressing need to not fail some stupid general education class is for some reason taking precedence, even though she knows that being in Wally's presence while he goads over her for being dismally stupid when it comes to physics will probably make her have a stroke.

NEW MESSAGE TO: Wallace  
February 11, 2016 [8:27 PM]  
I guess so.

There's a knock at the door before she even has a second to realize that she's wearing her worst lounging outfit – ripped up pajama pants that have a faded out Alice in Wonderland print, a crop top that has... more than one hole in the armpits, and some really stupid Cheshire Cat socks. Seriously, this outfit is so bad that Zatanna has threatened to burn it more than once, and whenever she sees her wearing it she actually physically winces. Whatever, it doesn't normally matter, but now that she's actually letting someone come into the house while wearing this, she suddenly feels very self-conscious. She at least sheds the socks before Wally knocks again at an excessively fast pace, and she runs over to the door, face preemptively red.

“Hey...” she says, dragging out the word, her voice raspy. She clears her throat and repeats herself. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he says, rocking back and forth on his heels for a second. “Uh... can I come in?”  
She realizes here that she's standing in the doorway, blocking it with her hand on the doorknob and her other hand on the doorframe, and she jerks backwards to open the entryway to him.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry.” She swallows thickly as he enters the room, meandering towards the living room to sit down on the couch. “Um, should I like...” She flounders for a second and gestures lamely, because she totally doesn't know how she's supposed to be acting right now before regaining some brain function and continuing, “order a pizza? Or something? Are you hungry?”

“I'm always hungry,” he says, sitting awkwardly on the couch and shrugging. “I mean, sure. I'll pitch in.”

She calls up a nearby pizza place on her cell phone and orders – cheese pizza with M&Ms, which is possibly the most revolting thing she's ever heard of and she kind of thinks he's just fucking with her, but she orders it anyway and tries not to want to fall into a ditch when the guy on the other end of the phone laughs a little at her. As she's on the phone, she's pulling together all her studying supplies and piling them onto the coffee table. She shifts nervously from foot to foot, not even wanting to sit next to Wally.

“Want to... get started? Or are you just gonna stand there?” He asks, throwing her off guard, after what is probably an eternity of them not saying anything and her awkwardly standing there.

“No!” She says, defensively, and stiffly sits down. “I mean, no, I'm not just going to stand here. Yes. Yes, let's get started.”

He starts working through every problem with her, and she hates herself for actually thinking that Wally is kind of smart – he's such a relentless dumbass all the time that it surprises her, even though she knows he gets good grades and always seems to know all the answers to everything. She catches him looking at her stomach more than once, but she pretends she doesn't notice, and she desperately tries to ignore the heat coiling in her gut whenever his hand brushes over her's. They're halfway through and Artemis actually feels like she's making some progress when Wally starts trying to balance her pencil on his fingertip.

“Sorry, this is probably really boring for you,” she mutters, feeling stupid and sort of useless. She presses her lips into a tight line.

“Nah. You're getting it, right?” He asks, voice sincere enough to make her want to crawl into a hole. She's not sure why her ears are heating up and her stomach is totally churning and she's pretty sure if she speaks it'll just come out like a squeak, so she settles for nodding. “You're pretty smart, Artemis.” She snaps her head over to him and she can see his eyes widen just the tiniest bit and the pencil falls off his finger – he makes to grab it but it falls to the floor. “I mean, y'know, for someone in a liberal arts major.” His voice takes on a sharper edge, but she knows it's just for show, because his eyes are looking at her dead on, his pupils blown out and fingers drumming fast on his knee.

“Sorry not everyone can read complete thermo textbooks in under an hour,” she mutters back, meaning for her words to have more bite than they do. She can't really bring herself to look away from him, even though it's making her skin prick up and get covered in goosebumps.

“Impressed?” He asks, in the voice that he uses when he's pretending to try and pick her up, the voice he used in the library before he ghosted over her shoulder and gave her his number, and he's smirking just slightly, and holy shit-- they are much closer together than when they started, and he's turning his body to face her's, one of his legs up on the couch and one of his hands suddenly next to her knee. His eyes are drifting around her face, flicking back and forth from her eyes to her mouth, and her tongue feels like lead in her mouth, oh god, she thinks her throat is closing up, is she dying? She thinks she might be suffocating.

“You wish,” she says, but she's not really sure that it was her who said it, because the voice doesn't even sound like her own. Her head is starting to swim with the scent of his cologne – since when does he wear cologne? – and its only anchor is his hand, which is now on her cheek, and they are so close together that she can _smell_ the green tic-tacs he had been chewing on when he came in. He's breathing softly, and the room is humming, and she feels soft and weird all over, and--

The intercom next to the door buzzes loudly, and she jumps right out of her skin, jerking backwards and hitting her head on the wall behind her but she doesn't even really care about the pain.

“Pizza! That's-- that's the pizza,” she laughs nervously, an awkwardly noted laugh that she forces from her throat and she jumps up off the couch and presses the button to let the delivery guy in, and she takes it from him and accidentally tips him 20 bucks, and she sets it down wordlessly, shell-shocked from how close she was to almost _kissing_ Wally West.

Did that seriously just happen? She looks over at him from the corner of her eye, and his face is paled out and he's tapping his foot against the floor at a freakish pace.  
Artemis takes a long time to open the box so she won't have to look at him, and she tries to come up with something to say. She's about to open her mouth to apologize, even though she's not sure what she would be apologizing for, when Wally speaks up.

“Have you ever seen Star Wars?”

She's thrown so off guard by the question that she looks over at him. His dark eyebrows are tilted up earnestly and she notices two particularly dark freckles next to his right eye.

“Um, no,” she says, looking back at the pizza. “I'm not a total nerd like you, Wally.”

“Huh,” he says, bringing his tone back up to its usual quality and reaching over her leg to grab a slice of pizza. “Well, you're missin' out.”

“If you're recommending it to me, I'll have to pass,” she rolls her eyes, but her voice sounds like she's joking, which is weird, she doesn't think that's what she meant her voice to sound like when she said that. “I don't know if I trust your taste.” She takes a slice and stares at it for a few seconds, wondering how her life got to this point, and she takes a bite, expecting to totally gag, but it's actually pretty good. Damn.

“Trust me enough to actually order a pizza with M&Ms on it.”

Well, he's got her there. He brushes off his hands, already done with his first piece of pizza.

“What d'ya say,” he continues, chewing on his bottom lip, blushing just a little bit, but still trying his hardest to turn on his ridiculous casanova voice, “study break? Watch the first movie? It's the opportunity of a lifetime, babe.” His voice cracks a little at the end, and he shifts in his seat. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for an answer from her. She stares at an errant mark of ink on the side of her paper for what feels like an eternity before blinking her gaze over to his.

“Sure?”

 

February 14, 2016  
11:55 PDT

Crawling through air vents was not a cliché Artemis ever imagined herself being in, but here she is. This is what she gets for getting trapped with Nightwing. Honestly, why is her life such a colossal joke all the time?

They all responded to a police scanner report – suspicious activity in an old warehouse. Product moving when the place had been abandoned for months, suspicious people going in and out at all hours of the night, stuff like that. They split up, which was a mistake, and it was Artemis who managed to sneak around the room where she found out that Sportsmaster was the main perp in all of this, which is something she would normally be proud of if the situation wasn't totally terrible. She grimaces. Sportsmaster must be acting on someone else's orders – he's just the hired help, after all. But even so, why did it have to be Sportsmaster? Out of all people, why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been Count Vertigo or Bane or literally any other person.

“Sportsmaster,” someone says, and Artemis tenses up behind the stack of crates she's hiding behind, fingers tightening around her crossbow. “We found these two skulking around.” Her eyes widen and she forcibly measures her breath to avoid going into full-blown panic mode.

“The speedster and the magician's assistant. Take 'em to the holding bay. Maybe we can sell them to Cadmus.”

Kid Flash and Zatanna. She closes her eyes, trying to think of what to do, how to contact Nightwing, when a hand covers her mouth and she almost screams before she hears Nightwing's voice in her ear.

“Quiet,” he whispers, and she just nods, trying desperately to bring down her rapidly spiking heart rate. Honestly, that whole disappearing and reappearing act he has going has gotten really old. They wait until the storeroom they're in is completely silent and he hops up on top of the crates and gestures for her to follow as he cracks open the grating for an air vent and crawls through.

“We need to get to the holding bay,” she says once they are both safely inside. She's trying to keep her cool but her voice betrays her. “What are we going to do?” Her voice catches and she can feel the panic mounting in her throat.

“You seem distraught,” Nightwing says calmly, not looking back at her.

“Distraught?” She whispers with as much fervor as she allows. “Of course I'm distraught! Sp-sportsmaster,” his name catches in her throat and makes her want to puke, “he's captured our two _superpowered_ partners! How are we supposed to--”

“ _Get_ traught, Artemis. We won't be able to do anything for them if we're dead or captured too.” His voice lowers. “I want to get Zatanna and KF back as much as you do, okay?” He looks at her dead in the eye. “And we will.”

She forces her breathing to slow down, and nods, ignoring the burning in her eyes and the lump forming in her throat. She follows him through the vents, pausing periodically to look at his blueprints projected from his wrist. All the while, she wonders what Cadmus is, and finally decides that she probably does not want to know.

“Here,” he whispers, coming to a stop near an opening. They peek out through the grate into a large storeroom, broken up into different areas by huge, stacked wooden crates, and completely deserted except for Zatanna and Kid Flash.

“What do we do?”

“We save them,” Nightwing announces, removing the grating and hopping down to a stack of crates directly under them. He sprints over to Kid Flash, who is handcuffed around his ankles and arms to a pole, and Artemis dashes over to Zatanna.

“Zatanna, wake up,” she whispers harshly, using an arrow to dig through the rope that is binding her arms to her torso. The other girl slouches into her arms as soon as the rope unravels, and she kneels onto the floor, laying her partner's head in her lap. Artemis shakes her gently. “C'mon, wake up...” She sighs. “Don't make me do this.” She waits for a moment before ripping off the tape covering Zatanna's mouth, which jolts her awake.

“Ouch, Tigress, wasn't that a little much?” She asks quietly, barely coherent but still managing a small version of her man-killing smile.

“Oh... thank god,” Artemis whispers, resting her head on Zatanna's collarbone and heaving a sigh of relief. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes. “Thank god you're okay.”

“Art...” Her voice is quiet, much too quiet for either of the boys to hear from their position a few yards away. She brings up a hand and strokes Artemis's hair, which is a wild, tangled mess. “I'm fine. Cheshire and Sportsmaster just... got the better of us.”

Her throat feels like it's going to close up completely.

“Cheshire, too?” She whispers, voice rough sounding and hollow.

“Yeah.” Zatanna shifts, getting up. “It's not your fault,” she murmurs, looking intently at her partner. “I know you're going to think it is, but it's not, so don't.”

“...yeah. Okay.” Artemis helps her stand, supporting her. “Zee...?” She stares down at the ground, eyebrows slightly raised. Her voice sounds small, even to her. “Girl's night tonight?”

“Duh. You owe me for taking so long to come to the rescue.”

They smile at each other for a moment as best they can before turning their attention to the boys.

“Nightwing, how's Kid?” Artemis calls over.

A groan echos through the space. Alright, he's fine.

“I feel like I got hit by a bus,” he whines. He stretches out his legs as best he can while they're still cuffed together, waiting on Nightwing to use the skeleton key he has tucked into his glove to unlock the handcuffs. “Dude, can't you hurry up with that?”

“Y'know KF, if you could just vibrate your molecules, this wouldn't even be an effective way to tie you down--”

“Alright, alright!” He mumbles, embarrassed. “I get it, I'm just saying!” He leans back against the pole he's locked to and sighs heavily. “Man, this is so not how I wanted to spend my Valentine's Day.”

“Like you had other plans?” Artemis scoffs.

“Maybe I did!” He cries defensively, voice cracking like a teenager. Nightwing shushes him quickly.

“Do you want to get us caught? Cheshire and Sportsmaster could come back any second.” The lock on cuffs around Kid Flash's ankles finally clicks open, and he moves to the ones around his wrists, shaking his head. “Man, Batman would have my head if he saw how long that took.”

Kid Flash rolls his eyes. “Cannot believe that's what you're seriously worried about, but okay Rob.” He kicks away the abandoned cuffs and rolls his stiff ankles around a few times. Nightwing fiddles with the second pair of cuffs. “All in favor of getting out of here once someone gets me out of these cuffs?”

Artemis is about to open her mouth when another voice startles her into turning around.

“Well, well. Looks like our little prize is trying to get away.”

Cheshire.

“Forget about them, little girl. We're done, let them leave.”

Sportsmaster.

Artemis feels sick. Her knees start to wobble under her and she almost thinks she's going to collapse to the ground. She swallows, hard, and focuses on a spot on the floor to regain herself.

“But they have reinforcements. Just think what a great price we could get for all four of them, including Batman's little protégé--” Cheshire purrs.

“Forget it. We're leaving.” He turns and walks out, and Artemis can hear a helicopter humming outside. She stops herself from rolling her eyes at how big of a cliché her father is.

Cheshire huffs, but follows, and the blonde can feel her chance slipping away.

“Nightwing, watch Zatanna. I'm going after her,” Artemis says, getting up and starting to run across the room, planning on cutting her off.

“Tigress! Do not pursue--”

“Save it, Nightwing!” She calls over her shoulder. She is not letting her get away. She breaks into a sprint as she enters the next room, pulling out her crossbow and shooting, burying an arrow into the wall right in front of Cheshire, stopping her in her tracks.

“Ar...chery girl,” Cheshire says, turning to face Artemis as smugness drips along her oddly halted speech. “Think you can beat me? Like you haven't tried before.”

Artemis's gaze narrows – what is she talking about? She's never fought her one on one before-- a shuriken goes whizzing past her and she jumps back, just to see Cheshire running towards her, pulling out her duel sais. Artemis takes a few steps back, trying to block with her crossbow and her arms. Her head is spinning, but she regains enough brain function to collapse her crossbow and put out the sword from its sheath on her back. She pulls it in front of her just in time for one of Cheshire's sais to clang against it and she breathes in sharply.

Cheshire hums in amusement.

“Got a few new tricks up your sleeve?” She asks, squaring Artemis into a corner.  
Cheshire kicks twice into the air, the first time knocking Artemis's sword to the ground. The second time, the toe of her shoe collides against her chin, knocking her orange mask off and making it clatter across the floor out of her reach. Artemis gasps sharply from the pain, tasting blood in her mouth. She opens her jaw and it making slight popping noise, but it seems unbroken. She spits out red-tinged saliva onto the ground before shifting her gaze up to meet the darkened eyes of Cheshire.  
With a cry, Artemis leaps forward, clawing down her face, ripping off her mask, letting it skid to the floor. She blows out a harsh breath--

“Jade,” she whispers, voice ragged, chest heaving. In one swift movement, she grabs her crossbow and affixes it with an arrow equipped with expanding polyurethane foam, not taking her eyes off her sister.

“Artemis,” Cheshire says, grinning. “So sorry we have to meet like this.” She stoops down and grabs her mask from the floor, replacing it firmly on her face, the painted-on smile somehow less disconcerting than her sister's own grin.

“No you're not.”

Jade shrugs. “I'm still your sister, Artemis.”

“Tigress,” she corrects, feeling woozy.

“Ooh, somebody finally put on her big-girl costume and got down to being a hero?”

Irritation flashes through Artemis, ripping hot and blinding.

“Better than you, Jade! You're working with _Sportsmaster_!” She pulse is pounding and her breath is shallow. “How can you let dad--”

“Woah.”

Artemis whips her head around, and Kid Flash is standing there, staring at her like he caught her naked, and totally not in a fun way. Her eyes go wide and she freezes, watching him study her face, and now she actually feels like she's going to pass out, before she remembers that Jade is still right there, but she's not – when Artemis turns her head back, she's gone, and Kid Flash is still here, and she wants to dig herself a hole to crawl into, or maybe shoot herself through the stomach with her own crossbow.

She can sense him walking towards her as a hellishly slow pace, especially for him, and he picks up her mask, holding it out to her. She glances at him from her peripheral, and he's looking towards the floor, his face burning, biting his bottom lip. She takes the mask gingerly and looks it over – a few scratches and dents in the orange and black paint – before starting to put it on.

“KF!” Nightwing calls from a distance, rounding the corner to where they are. “Did you--”

“Crap,” Wally mutters, throwing himself between Artemis and Nightwing, blocking her identity from him until she can slip the mask back on securely. His back is grazing her chest and her skin heats up unpleasantly.

“What is going on here,” Nightwing asks, smirking. Artemis rolls her eyes.

“Nothing,” she says, strolling back towards the main hangar. She looks back to see

Nightwing nudging Kid Flash, devious expression obvious even behind his domino mask, but the redhead seems unhappy – his shoulders are slumping and his face is flushed and pale, making him look like he might pass out at any moment.

Artemis splits before she can see anything else.

 

February 22, 2016  
19:08 PDT

NEW MESSAGE FROM: Wallace  
February 22, 2016 [7:08 PM]  
episode V tonight?

Artemis has no idea what compels her to say “yes.” She ignores the nagging idea in her mind that says that maybe she actually thinks Wally is kind of funny, sometimes (when he's not being a total ass – okay, sometimes even when he is), and that she kind of likes the feeling she gets when he looks at her and when he puts on his smarmy casanova voice, crooning at her and calling her “babe.”

God, who even is she?

She actually puts on her most presentable pair of sweats (Zatanna says such a thing doesn't exist but Artemis paid like 50 bucks for these sweats and they have almost no holes in them, so she thinks they're definitely presentable enough for Wally) and makes her way over. She knocks on the door and it flies open immediately.

“What took ya?” Wally asks, smirking.

“Shove it, West,” she says, but she's laughing, and she feels weird. “Were you waiting by the door for my arrival or something?”

“No!” His voice rises at least two octaves and Artemis snickers.

She sits on the couch and he hooks up his computer to the TV.

“Where's Dick tonight?”

“Hmm, dunno.” He stares at the computer screen, his tongue poking out just barely between his lips. “Probably with a girl. As usual.” He rolls his eyes, but smiles. The door buzzer goes off and she looks over at him. “I ordered food already. Hope you don't mind?”

“How'd you know I'd even come?” She asks, eyeing him as he gets up and lets the guy in. He waits by the door for the knock and shrugs.

“Wishful thinking?”

The delivery guy comes up and he pays, handing off two huge plastic bags. He thanks him and sets out the food on the table, getting plates – for some reason, Artemis is surprised at how good of a host he is. He stands in front of the table and rubs his neck a little sheepishly.

“I didn't really know what you'd like so I got--”

“One of everything??” She asks incredulously. There is so much food laying out in front of her that she feels sick just looking at it. She's pretty sure this could feed her for over a week, but Wally – maybe two days. _Maybe_.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He presses play on the movie and sits down on the couch, and he provides helpful mentions of characters that Artemis honestly forgot about and watches her with a great deal of amusement when she points out that Luke and Leia are totally meant to be together even though Leia and Han are flirting.

“Yeah, totally,” he agrees, a high level of sarcasm in his voice. “You are so right.”

She elects to ignore him, but boy does she feel embarrassed when Leia tells Han she loves him before he gets frozen in carbonite. Whatever, she stands by her statements, and even if she didn't, Wally will be the last one to know.

“So, what'd ya think?” He asks excitedly as the ending credits roll.

“I mean, it's okay. I guess.” She shrugs, feigning nonchalance rather poorly, as the very beginnings of a smile start to turn up the corners of her lips.

“Oh ha ha, you loved it and you know it.”

“Maybe.”

The credits end and they're left with silence. Artemis shifts uncomfortably in her seat and wonders briefly what the hell is even going on while Wally rests his arm around the backrest of the couch and taps his fingers rhythmically against the cushion.

“What do you do when you want to tell someone something, but aren't sure how they'll react?” He asks, in a sudden, random moment of sincerity. She looks at him, brows furrowed.

“Are you seriously asking me a morality question right now?”

“Yes. Shut up. It's hypothetical!”

She flops back into her seat and looks up at the ceiling before closing her eyes.

“I mean... I guess if you think it's important, then you should tell them.” She opens her eyes and shifts her gaze over to him. “Right?”

His line of sight flickers around between her eyes for a moment before he responds, seemingly satisfied with her answer.

“Right.”

 

February 29, 2016  
23:10 PDT

“Where's your partner in crime?” Kid Flash asks, tilting his head. “Or uh, I guess partner in not crime?”

“I get it, Kid,” Tigress says, smiling in spite of the bad joke. “Zatanna is... doing something else tonight.” Something else involving pushing Artemis out the door and slamming it in her face, even going so far as locking the window to the fire escape to get her to go out in full costume. “What about your's?”

“Who even knows,” he says, laughing quietly as he takes a seat on the edge of the roof.

“He's always up to something. Probably out with his other half.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No, Batman.”

“Long way from Gotham,” Artemis says, voice almost wistful.

“Zeta tubes, babe.”

There's a long silence, halted only by Artemis's boots cracking the gravel on the roof as she crosses over and sits down. She collapses her crossbow and looks down at the street, cars passing only every few minutes, their streaking lights the only thing she can make out.

“I was just kidding, about that Batman thing. I think he's with a girl tonight. Typical,” Kid Flash snorts. “He thinks he's such a ladies man.” He leans back on his hands, tilting his head towards the sky, and she watches the outline of his adam's apple bob as he swallows. Once he stops talking, it remains quiet, and they both shift uncomfortably.

Kid Flash blows out a harsh breath, burying his face in his hands for just a moment before running his hands through his swept back hair. “Um, Tigress,” he starts, trying to find his footing before he falls flat on his face. “About the other day, er, week I guess, I don't really know how long it's been--” Artemis looks at him, eyebrows creased together under her mask and eyes narrow. “Um, right, getting to the point – I didn't... I didn't mean for it to seem like I was upset, or something. About finding out-- well... you know. I was just surprised.”

Me too, Artemis thinks. She closes her eyes, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. She taps her fingernails against her mask.

“Artemis,” He says, voice hesitant, like he's trying it out. Her shoulders tense up and she clenches her jaw – she doesn't like the edge it has to it, and she shivers. “Do you remember when we met?” He gestures vaguely at the air, looking over at her. She feels his eyes on her, and she shrugs.

When they met, he had fallen flat on his face, trying to skid to a stop, his arms full of confiscated weapons that spread out before him. It was two years ago, and Artemis was a freshman in college, in a new city, one that was so different that the sprawling muckiness of Gotham or even the bright urban area of Star City.

“This is Kid Flash,” Nightwing had said, gesturing over to him from the girls. They tried not to laugh.

“Kid Flash?” Artemis said, before she could stop herself. “Aren't you a little old to be a sidekick?”

He blushed under his pointed cowl, turning a red that clashed with his orange hair.

“Who are you supposed to be?” He asked pointedly, jumping up.

“I'm Green Arrow's niece, ever heard of him?” She ripped back, stepping forward confrontationally.

“How funny, because I've definitely heard of him, but never of you.”

“She's new to the game,” Zatanna said before Artemis elbowed her in the ribs. “Hey!”

Kid Flash stepped up to his full height before her, sizing her up. “Well I don't need some newbie getting in my way, got that?” He turns away. “Let's go, Nightwing.”

Nightwing gave Artemis a vague shrug as Kid dragged him away, and all she could do was roll her eyes.

He laughs, a little bit. “I was so mad at Rob for even introducing us,” he says quietly. He looks at her at the corner of his eye, trying to gauge a reaction. He takes in a deep breath before blowing it out, a light fog forming in front of his face. “I wanna tell you something, and this might be one of those things that sounds way stupider in real life, but, uh,” he hesitates here before continuing. “You know I really trust you, right? Like, I know you'll always have my back. I like--” He coughs, here, which makes Artemis's whole body go on high alert, because how the fuck is he going to finish off this sentence. “I like how strong you are, and everything.” She relaxes a little, blowing out a soft breath that forms into a fog in front of her face. “You don't have anything to prove, or anything. Not to me.”

She closes her eyes, unmoving, her heart pounding against her ribs and in her ears, every piece of her body humming. She holds a lump in her throat, feeling like something important is about to happen, the air buzzing and prickling at her skin, so thick it's hard to breathe. “Will you look at me?” She opens her eyes, and she does, turning her head just enough to see him swallow tightly and put his thumbs under his cowl.

“Wait--” She starts, reaching for him, but his mind is made up and she doesn't get more than half an inch before the boy, with super speed and pure stubbornness as an extra superpower, flips off his cowl.

Freckles. He has freckles, all across his nose and cheeks, ruddy skin that bring out striking green eyes and slightly uneven teeth and a jawline that of course she's seen before but it looks so different now, because it's _Wally West_ sitting in front of her, and of course, it had to be him.

Of all people, it had to be him.

“Wally,” she says, or at least attempts to say, even though her throat has gone so dry she could probably light a match on it. She scoots back a few inches before jumping up to her feet. “Why.” A statement, not a question, and she feels anger flickering in her. “Why did you have to tell me this!”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Wally says, following suit and standing up next to her.

“I mean, why'd you have to blow this whole thing? Now I'm just going to hate Kid Flash, just like I hate you!” Artemis swallows hard and closes her eyes – she should not have said that. She wishes she could snatch her words back up from the air where they hang and destroy them, to forget she ever said anything.

When she slowly opens her eyes, she's met with a faint gust of wind, and she walks home by herself, replaying the words over and over in her mind with every step.

 

March 11, 2016  
17:00 PST

“Don't make me do this, Zatanna,” Artemis pleads, arms crossed, feet firmly on the ground from her position on the couch. “Please.”

“I'm sick of you moping around over Wally!” Zatanna says, frustrated. She sighs and her voice softens, her arms falling to her sides. “I think you need to talk to him. Like... now.”

“How long did you know he was Kid Flash?” Artemis asks quietly, eyes on the floor. Her roommate crosses her arms and shrugs, noncommittal.

“I've known Kid Flash for a long time, Artemis.”

Artemis leans back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. It's not Zatanna's job to tell her Kid's secret identity, and she knows that. So why does she feel like such an idiot? She was caught so off guard that she said something she regrets – typical Artemis move.

She huffs out a breath defiantly and stands up.

“I'll go talk to him.”

She grabs the jacket that has been sitting on her chair ever since Wally let her wear it at the party and stomps her way out of the apartment, jaw set and positive that she can do this. She marches down the hall to Wally's room before she can talk herself out of it and knocks on the door, and when she's met with Dick Grayson is exactly when she loses her nerve.

“Um. Hi, Dick,” Artemis says, voice weak, as she stares down at her shoes, which seem very interesting all of a sudden. She fiddles with Wally's jacket behind her back, finding the soft fabric to be soothing, even though the very smell of it, of him, makes her want to throw up. “Is Wally here?”

“Here to break his heart again?” He asks, steely blue eyes betraying his joking tone. She flounders for words.

“Shut it, Grayson,” is what she settles for, not even having the energy to come up with a snappy comeback. She starts walking in the direction of his room and Dick leans against the wall.

“He won't be very happy to see you.”

She knows that, and she doesn't respond, because she really has nothing to say. She knows that he won't be happy to see her, because when has he ever been? She raises a hand up to the door to his room and stalls for a moment, tightening her fist. Before she can turn around and return to her apartment, she knocks and enters at the same time, finding Wally laying on his bed, throwing a tennis ball up towards the ceiling and catching it. He looks over and sits upright, a faint expression of surprise crossing his face before his stare turns cold. He hunches his shoulders around his face and looks away from her.

She swallows hard before starting to speak.

“Hey, Kid.” His eyes flick over to her, and she steels herself against his cold stare. She can't differentiate between the two now, between Wally and Kid Flash, and she doesn't understand how she didn't figure it out before. She can imagine so perfectly the outline of his cowl on his cheeks, just barely blocking out his freckles and creating the faintest of tan lines, the yellow bringing out flecks of gold in his eyes that she only sees under the streetlights, when she really looked at him. “Uh, I brought your jacket back. Sorry for not giving it back sooner, I, um...” she loses her will and she hands it over, and he takes it, throwing it to the side. “Look, I-- I didn't mean what I said.”

It's quiet in the room except for the humming of a small space heater. A wind rattles the cracked open window and sneaks its way in, chilling Artemis through her skin.  
“Then what did you mean, Artemis?” He asks. There it is again. Same as every other time he, as Wally, has said her name. An undercurrent of iciness that cut through her, and she swallows hard. He stands up and starts to pace back and forth, trying to burn off his extra energy from staying in his room for hours. Hours, which feel like days to someone with super speed.

All the moments seem to fall into place that were unexplainable, and she wishes she had seen it before, and she feels stupid.

“I... I don't know.”

She doesn't know, and her gaze breaks away, examining a crack in the wall before tearing away and looking back to him. His eyes haven't left her face and she can feel the skin on her neck burning.

“I--”

“Didn't you ever think that maybe we were wrong about each other?!” Wally cries out, cutting her off suddenly. He actually smashes his fist into the wall next to him, shoulders tight and eyes angry. “Were you seriously that freaked out about me--” He hesitates here, for just a moment, before picking his words back up, “about me, Wally, knowing who you are?” He stares down at her, and she tries to keep her chest puffed out and her back straight, trying so hard to not wilt under his scrutiny, because she will not bow to Wally, or Kid Flash, or whoever he is. Despite her false confidence, she has nothing to say, and the only sound she makes is a ragged sigh that slips from her mouth. He turns away from her, his eyes closed.

“I didn't want you to find out my secret identity. Where is my say in this?” She swallows to prevent her voice from cracking. “Why is it all up to you?”

“I thought I _trusted_ you!” His voice is cracking now too, and he breathes out harshly. “I thought I could trust you, and now I'm... now I'm just some chump!” He crosses the room, not sure what to do with himself or his hands or all this pent up frustration and anger that is threatening to burst from his chest. His back is turned to her, and she actually lets her guard down, letting her shoulders sink and her gaze fall to the floor. “Please tell me I was wrong about you, Artemis.” He turns, and she stiffens, faltering under his stare. She averts her eyes and he shakes his head, and she can feel the disappointment echoing through the room. “I guess I wasn't. You've just proved that you're a coward, and you're insecure.” His voice sounds like he just ran a marathon, and he feels like it too, but all he wants to do now to get out of this suffocating room and run.

“Kid--” Artemis starts, but he cuts her off.

“Wally.” His face colors, embarrassed, but he continues. “You know my name.” He walks to the door and pauses, a hand resting on the doorframe like he's exhausted. “Use it.”

The door slams shut in her face from the pulse of him bolting.

She stands there, staring down at her fingernails, colored a pitifully chipped mint green, and pretends she can't feel her chin tremble.

 

April 8, 2016  
12:30 PST

Weeks passed by and Artemis did not run into Wally once. The new quarter starts, and for once, he wasn't in a single one of her classes.

Every time she would go out as Tigress, she would go alone, and when she sees Dick across the courtyard, she turns and goes the long way to her classes. She can't stand to see his eyes, the words he said about breaking Wally's heart still echoing in her mind even after all this time.

“Do you think... you should talk to him?” Zatanna offered hesitantly, the night before the new quarter started. Artemis shook her head, because that same suggestion turned out so well the last time, and her roommate never said anything else about it.  
Weeks passed by, and she ignored the constant lump in her throat, the ever-present pit in her stomach, and went on auto-pilot. She doesn't blame him for not wanting to talk to her ever again. Why would he?

She doesn't even want to talk to herself.

She sits in Starbucks, staring listlessly at her laptop screen with a pdf of her literature textbook, reading over the same passage over and over, trying to comprehend it.

Closing her laptop in frustration, she's caught with the sight of Wally, standing in line. He has dark circles under his eyes and his freckles seem paled out and his hair is in a desperate need for a cut, the messy undercut starting to grow out too much. She swallows – does he know she's here? Did he see her when he came in? No, if he saw her, he would've left, right? That's what she would've done, but...

For some reason, beyond explanation, she gets up and crosses over to him and taps him on the arm. He turns to her, and he looks so unlike himself, and she hates it, and she hates herself, and she hates the look he's giving her, cold and desolate. She gulps.  
“Can I buy your coffee?” She asks, quietly. “And... can I talk to you? Somewhere?”  
He stares at her for a long time, and she thinks that maybe she should just leave, but he finally nods and doesn't say anything at all.

They go to a deserted spot in the quad, a secluded area near a rose garden, away from the foot traffic of students going to class and from any prying eyes. They're quiet for awhile, Artemis shifting her weight nervously and finally sitting on her hands.

“You wanted to talk, right?” Wally says, voice creaky and tired. He sounds so tired that it makes Artemis feel even worse.

“Right, right,” she mumbles. She takes in a deep breath before starting to speak, slowly. “I think I was wrong about you but,” Artemis pauses here, sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth, “you were right about me. The whole time.” She sucks in a breath, pushing out her words before she can stop herself. “I... I'm not Green Arrow's niece. My mother is... was Huntress. An ex-con. My dad's Sportsmaster.” She spits his name out, and can feel her eyes welling up with tears. She swallows back the lump in her throat and wills herself to keep going. With that, something inside her snaps, and everything floods out before she can stop it. “My sister is Cheshire! I was so desperate to make sure you-- neither of you found out, because you're. I mean, I watched Kid Flash on the news! You're a superhero and the Flash's nephew and I mean, Nightwing has the whole Bat family and I'm just trying to play against who I was raised to be. And when you found out who I was, I was sure it was over, and so when you told me that you were you, I freaked out because we were always fighting and then? Then we weren't! And I didn't know what was going on or how to feel and...” She's out of breath and doesn't know what else to say even though her mind is swimming with thoughts and she's not even sure if any of what she just said made sense. “I'm a coward. And I'm insecure.” She echoes his words, ones that have been swimming in her head like clockwork every day for the past three weeks. “And I'm sorry.”

“Didn't I tell you you didn't have anything to prove to me?” Wally says, staring at her, eyes green, green with gold flecks and dark circles under them like he hasn't slept in days. She presses her lips into a tight line.

“But you didn't know me.”

“That didn't matter. Not to me, anyway.”

Artemis just shrugs, coming up empty with anything to say. She hugs herself, rubbing her hands along her arms.

“I didn't go snooping around after I found out it was you. I'm not Nightwing, I'm not some world-class detective.” He bobs his shoulders up and down and stares hard down at the cup of coffee in his hands. He kicks listlessly at the ground. “You know, Artemis, believe it or not, I'm really into you.”

Oh god. Her face immediately flushes of all color and she feels her skin burning like she's on fire. She turns to face him, eyes wide, and his face is alight and his lips are pressed tightly together to prevent them from trembling but he stands his ground.

“I should've told you a long time ago,” he says.

“No kidding,” is what comes out of her mouth, surprising and not sounding like her voice at all. She stares at a spot on the horizon just past his head and wants to scream, the sound of traffic streaming around campus being drowned out by the sound of her own pulse pounding in her ears. The wind rustles through the rose bushes and she only focuses on it so she's not looking at his face even though she really wants to, and from her peripheral she sees him setting down his barely-touched coffee and he shifts towards her, bringing up a hand to her cheek.

She forces herself to look at him barely long enough to know what's about to happen, and she doesn't stop it, because the tightness in her chest is relieved and for some reason, she wants to laugh as he surges forward, crashing their lips together, their teeth clattering together not unpleasantly, their chins bumping.

They pull away, just barely, and she opens her eyes to see him staring, and his breath is still ghosting along her mouth and it smells like coffee and breath mints and she wants it again, and again, and again, until she can't breathe and she feels dizzy.

“You should've done that a long time ago too,” she comments, and she can feel him smile against her mouth, and she wraps her arms over his shoulders and laughs and maybe she hates herself for this whole ordeal, just a little, but it doesn't really matter because he's kissing her again and she realizes that of all people, it definitely had to be him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! please like and comment etc if you liked it. I've been working on this for like a year and am really excited to finally be able to put it up!! my tumblr is @ivankarelin and my headcanon tumblr is @motokiharuna.


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